Ever watch those old westerns with stagecoachs whipping down the trail what looks to be 55 mph? The wheels are always spinning backwards! Remember those free spinning wheel looking hubcaps that came out about 20 years ago? First time I seen one I was at a intersection and a car was sitting at the red light from my right. I focused on the wheel spinning and had a fast impression that the car was moving but it was sitting still. I stood on my brake! I wonder if they were ever outlawed anywhere for that?
I would like to try flying a copter but probley couldnt afford a lesson. There is a school at our airport with about 13 copters. It started up about a year or two ago here at cedar city. I understand most if not all students are vets on the GI bill. I heard the course is about $150,000s! Thats a lot of dough shelled out if you ever did get a job and then a heart attack or something to lose your physical! I was out earlier today and flew my citabria about a hour and usually could see one to three copters at a time hovering around the airport. They are flying over our house more times a day than I can count.
Back in 1960 I was working on a fire in Sequoia NP. A pilot had to get a bunch of us off the mountain side quick as the fire was coming on us fast. We were on a high cliff with some trustee`s. I flew down with one, he had long hair. The pilot got a short ways out from the mountain and I guess auto rotated down quite a ways. I looked over and seen the trustees hair standing straight up about 10"s. We were sort of free falling and it felt like we were going to hell on a toboggan! Actually it cracked me up looking at him! Later that afternoon that pilot crashed! He lived but was busted up. I was on the heliport when another pilot brought him in strapped to the runners. I understand he was hovering while they were unloading some tools on the steep mountain side and a gust of wind caught the copter and rolled him over down the mountain. It was a huge fire with about 10 contract pilots. We had a army medic on the field and he had to pull some teeth out of the poor guys throat! Had a busted leg too.
Another pilot that I later recognized on Broderick Crawford`s Highway Patrol series had flown me up earlier on that same fire. A few years later I ran into Crawford when I was a universal studios guard. I asked him about the pilot and Crawford told me that he later got killed when he dropped into a fire! I had a close friend that I worked with that was a HC instructor out of Burbank. One night he called in sick. The next morning when we got the newspaper there was a nice picture of him in the LA Times! He and a student had to auto rotate down right in front of a funneral being held at forest lawn! They were using Bell G-2`s and G-3`s back then. Also a Hiller and a french Allouett. (SP?) We also lost another copter that summer in 1960.
